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A recent study showed that 69% of the data businesses store has no commercial value, according to a 2012 Compliance, Governance, and Oversight Counsel Summit analysis.

Networkcomputing.com advised that companies need to be discerning in what data they store and how. With big data promising a deluge of new information, IT managers should implement information governance plans to classify the value of different types of data.

Cloud providers need to use external storage to safeguard their data, recommended informationweek.com. It compared some of the advantages and disadvantages between cloud and tape storage and recovery:

Speed. Restoring systems online can be a slow process, which is problematic for downed businesses needing to recover their data. Yet tape allows businesses to quickly restore important applications and files.

Guarantees. Most cloud-recovery providers do not offer performance guarantees. Often clients are expected to be content that their systems are just back up and running – but at what quality?

Extra tasks. Many cloud providers are unable to help with the network re-routing issues that are bound to occur during the recovery process.

The verdict?

Tape and cloud services should be combined in a hybrid data recovery plan. In the event of data loss, a given application could be restarted using cloud recovery while the tape is sent to the business. The bulk of the data could then be added via tape.

While tape was once found everywhere, its role in data storage has now changed significantly, according to theregister.co.uk.

The past

The rise of high-capacity disk storage, as well as advances in de-duplication, led to a preference for disk storage in recent years. However, many companies chose to continue backing up their stored data on tape for additional security. In years gone by, the data would have been saved immediately to tape.

How can tape backups help?

Despite rumours of its demise, tape has made a strong comeback in data storage, explained Chris Mellor for The Register. Even big companies like Google and Amazon are putting their money on it.

Is the end of tape nigh?

For the last five years, disk evangelists have forecast the end of tape, enamoured by the de-duplication abilities of disk. However, reality has now sunk in, with observers realising that tape is cheaper, more reliable and better for long-term storage.

Many companies write disaster recovery plans that tick a compliance box and sound fine on paper but can’t actually be implemented, explained Datamation.

For instance, prior to Hurricane Sandy in the US, many businesses had plans for employees to work from home in the event of a disaster affecting the business. When the hurricane struck, it devastated both homes and businesses and made this aspect of the recovery plan unworkable.

Experts are debating the role of tape as companies increasingly turn to the cloud to handle data backup. George Crump of Information Week went over some of the pros and cons.

The cloud

While the cloud is ideal for nightly back ups and the restoring of specific files, full server recoveries can be difficult due to bandwidth limitations. In contrast, tape can be used to more quickly restore a downed server.

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Off-site tape storage is a practical and cost-effective solution for the protection and archiving of your data back-ups. Iron Mountain offers a full range of flexible off-site tape storage, management and retrieval services.